Reiteration
by whispermusic
Summary: Harry's headaches aren't so serious this time around. Preslashy, angsty HPDM.


**Disclaimer:** Harry Potter and other related characters and storylines are property of one Ms. J. K. Rowling, and I'm not making a cent from this.

--

It is a bad, bad idea. Harry knows it, too, but it is too late to back out. He has already knocked on the door.

Malfoy is taking his time answering. Time in which, Harry thinks, he could still run. The lift isn't too far from Malfoy's door. Harry realizes he could just go home, take some aspirin, and climb in bed till his headache goes away.

But Harry also realizes that it would be foolish to ignore what feels so much like the headaches he used to get, so he stays rooted to the scarred hardwood flooring in front of Malfoy's door.

--

Last week, Harry woke up in the middle of the night for a piss. And for the first time in three years, he clutched his forehead against the pain that seemed to be emanating from his lightning bolt scar. A sharp, insistent pressure behind his eyes kept him from sleeping after he used the loo. It also convinced him to call Hermione in the morning.

Hermione, in turn, convinced him to call on Malfoy. Harry had protested, but Malfoy was "the only surviving marked Death Eater who, after the war, had not been imprisoned, murdered, or driven to madness, _Harry_."

--

A face that only vaguely looks like Malfoy's appears in the crack of the door when it finally opens. He is partially obscured by a bulky chain that stretches across the opening.

"Yes?" A quiet, timid voice—quite uncharacteristic of a Malfoy.

Harry briefly wonders whether Hermione has tracked down the right address. "Malfoy?"

"Fucking—Potter!"

Ah, yes, thinks Harry bitterly. There is the famous Malfoy charm. It's him. Harry tries to smile.

The door slams and Harry is too flabbergasted to get properly indignant before it opens again, all the way this time.

"Well, come in, then," says Draco. He slams and locks the door again after Harry has entered, then follows closely behind with a glare just _daring _Harry to ask about the heavy locks, or about the piles of newspapers in the front hallway of his flat, or his shabby state of dress. He ushers Harry into a room with two wooden chairs, one overturned, and an overstuffed loveseat with a fair share of mysterious stains, then gestures for him to sit. Harry takes a chair and tries to stop thinking about the fresh-looking spot on the loveseat, but stares at it till Malfoy _sits on it_.

Then he just stares at Malfoy. Malfoy, who lights a cigarette immediately after sitting down, who does not sneer, who is oddly quiet, who is used to being stared at.

--

If Malfoy had not lost so much during the war, he would have commented on Harry's total lack of social grace, which was really very unsurprising, because he had always been a slack-jawed so-and-so. He would then add that growing up without parents does that to a person, isn't that right, Potter? But Malfoy's parents were dead, and he was no longer in any position to talk about adhering to the rules of etiquette.

--

"Look, Malfoy," says Harry, deciding to jump straight to his point after he stops staring at Malfoy, "I was wondering if you were noticing any... changes in your mark lately."

"Why?" says Malfoy bitterly. "You spearheading some new charity project through the Ministry?" Pain pulses behind Harry's eye in response, but Malfoy is not to know this. Still, after looking at Harry calculatingly for a moment, he starts over: "Um, no. I haven't felt anything since Voldemort died."

Harry is a little scared by this information and his thinks face probably shows it, because Malfoy looks away uncomfortably and takes a long drag from his cigarette. Harry moves to leave before Malfoy has the chance to kick him out, but he is stopped at the door by a bony hand around his arm.

"Potter, what's going on?" Malfoy asks, unfamiliar in his gentle tone.

Malfoy laughs when Harry tells him he just has a headache, and tells him to go to a doctor.

"A muggle doctor," he clarifies. Then he shoves Harry into the hall and slams the door shut.

--

Later, when Harry tells Hermione about the meeting, she appreciates the irony that it took Malfoy of all people to remind them of the muggle doctor.

TBC. beta work, anyone?


End file.
